Why do old men persist at the ABC when whip-smart women are let go?

Why do older men persist at ABC radio when whip-smart women are let go? The witches are up to their elbows in watchfulness as a new political reality dawns.

A woman at the top of her game – Sarah Macdonald – was let go by ABC Radio just before Christmas, despite lifting the ratings in her morning radio slot.

After November 5 the witches of the world hauled out the cauldrons, stoked the fires and gathered close; a new front was opening up. It was the battle with the freshly-energised men who gloated, champing at the bit for Inauguration Day on January 20. And now that illustrious date is almost upon us, when the witches fear it will be all change from men given permission to say what they really, really want.

Shortly after Trump’s victory, the taunt “Your body, my choice” was unleashed by the far-right live-streamer Nick Fuentes. Within days Amazon was selling the T-shirts and hoodies. Gleeful challenges from like-minded men flooded the internet. “Women, back to the kitchen.” “We don’t need permission” [to impregnate].

Ah, the careless gloating, careless triumph. And what did battle-weary older feminists tell the young women confronted by this charming new round of discourse? In what world was the sentiment not monstrous? We older women watched on, unquiet; a fresh seed of rage reaching for the water and the light. We had seen it all before and will see it again, of course, for the rest of our lives and our daughters’ lives, and that is the exhausting truth.

Someone told me that females of a certain age are known as “silverbacks” at her work, a putdown reeking of vicious misogyny. Men older than them are called “silver foxes” – aggressive gorilla, versus sleek and smart. Yet to me these silverbacks are women in their blazing prime; females in their fifties and sixties who see through it all and have the courage to call it out, who speak truth and are punished, deemed dangerous despite their professionalism and passion.

A woman at the top of her game – Sarah Macdonald – was let go by ABC Radio just before Christmas, despite lifting the ratings in her morning radio slot, often talking to the Prime Minister and being the first to interview our new Governor-General. She was utterly professional, hugely beloved, and was brutally sacked by two male managers brought across from commercial radio.

Kim Williams, what of all the charmed lives of the men on ABC Radio who persist long into old age? Could you please look at every single one of your male broadcasters who is beyond retirement age and ask, why are they still there, locking out several generations of more diverse talent below them; why do they persist when whip-smart women are let go? Is there no sense of shame among those older men?

ABC chair Kim Williams. Picture: NewsWire/Martin Ollman

And so we enter a new arc of history, with triumphant memes like “Your body, my choice” pinging around the internet. The witches held those fresh yet ancient insults in the clench of their fists. And brewing alongside the anger of the dog-tired older women is a new momentum among younger ones: the 4B movement, which has its origins in South Korea. It’s a refutation of traditional gender roles that involves a swearing-off of dating, of marrying and having sex with men or carrying their children until gender equality is reached. Boom.

So where will this new, Trump-enabled gloating lead us? Into greater female pushback, I suspect. This new era will galvanise. The witches are up to their elbows in watchfulness as a new political reality dawns. Older women must teach younger ones to be aware. To recognise. See through it. Call unfairness out.

Ancient furies rise, old as bones, indestructible as stones. The war is about vigilance and dismay; anger is the fuel into betterment. The witches know the battle is never-ending and they must buckle up, once again, for the second Trumpian era. “I only know that I will never again trust my life, my future, to the whims of men,” Toni Morrison once wrote, and it feels even more prescient now. But the women are stopless.